Requirements Analysis Document Template

Purpose

The results of the requirements elicitation and the analysis activities are documented in the Requirements Analysis Document (RAD). This document completely describes the system in terms of functional and nonfunctional requirements and serves as a contractual basis between the client and the developers.

Audience

The audience for the RAD includes the client, the users, the project management, the system analysts (i.e., the developers who participate in the requirements), and the system designers (i.e., the developers who participate in the system design). The first part of
the document, including use cases and nonfunctional requirements, is written during requirements elicitation. The formalization of the specification in terms of object models is written during analysis. We use an example template for a RAD introduced in the book.

Template

Outline

Description

1. Introduction
1.1 Purpose of the system
1.2 Scope of the system
1.3 Objectives and success criteria of the project
1.4 Definitions, acronyms, and abbreviations
1.5 References
1.6 Overview

The first section of the RAD is an Introduction. Its purpose is to provide a brief overview of the function of the system and the reasons for its development, its scope, and references to the development context (e.g., reference to the problem statement written by the client, references to existing systems, feasibility studies). The introduction also includes the objectives and success
criteria of the project.

2. Current system

The second section, Current system, describes the current state of affairs. If the new system will replace an existing system, this section describes the functionality and the problems
of the current system. Otherwise, this section describes how the tasks supported by the new system are accomplished now.

3. Proposed system

The third section documents the requirements elicitation and the analysis model of the new system.

3.1 Overview

The overview presents a functional overview of the system.

3.2 Functional requirements

Functional requirements describes the high-level functionality of the system.

System models describes the scenarios, use cases, object model, and dynamic models for the system. This section contains the complete functional specification, including mock-ups illustrating the user interface of the system and navigational paths representing the sequence of screens. The subsections Object model and Dynamic model are written during the Analysis activity.

4. Glossary

A glossary of important terms, to ensure consistency in the specification and to ensure that we use the client’s terms.